


The Cost

by ajf



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Childhood Trauma, F/M, M/M, Multi, Psychological Trauma, jedistormpilot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-10 20:18:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 9,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5599453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ajf/pseuds/ajf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Rey was holding his hand and Poe was gripping his shoulder and the present was where he needed to be, moving forward, never looking back.</i>
</p><p>An angst-filled but ultimately joyful jedistormpilot romance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Rey

Finn floated upright in a glass tube, bathed in blue light, the tubes wrapped around him gently pulsing like living things. Rey reached out her hand to touch her palm against the glass. She was afraid he’d be cold, but the glass felt human-warm, so she smiled.

“He’s stabilizing," said Doctor Kalonia. “We’re pulling him out of the tank tomorrow and putting him in a standard pod. As long as his body handles the transition well, we’ll restore consciousness soon after. He’s very strong.”

“Thank you,” she said. She only had the haziest idea of what “tomorrow” even meant. Her body was on three different planetary time clocks; her mind was fried on adrenaline. She hadn’t slept since Starkiller Base. “Thank you, thank you so much—"

“No need to thank me. It’s what I do.”

Hearing the tension in the doctor's voice, Rey turned to face her. “Did I say something wrong?” 

“No,” came a voice to her right. “You didn’t say anything wrong.” The tone was low, steady, patient. The man himself walked around the edge of the tube a second later. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re used to medical services as transactions only?”

She couldn’t really focus on his face, exhaustion making her stupid and slow… still, she felt like she should know this man. 

“You’re right about that,” she mumbled. Med tech services on Jakku always, always cost. Something as simple as a broken ankle could knock a free scavenger right back down into indentured servitude—she’d seen it happen to others. Whenever she’d had a fall, she’d gritted her teeth and treated it herself.

“You’re one of us now,” the man said. “So is Finn. We take care of our own in the Resistance. That’s what the doctor’s trying to say.”

Doctor Kalonia made a noncommittal noise. She’d already moved halfway across the lab to unpeel a pair of elbow-length gloves and pass them to the med droid. Even Rey, with her limited ability to read body language, could easily read Kalonia's: _I’m busy, let me work on my patients in peace._

“Let’s go,” said the man, right on cue. She followed him out. “Should I walk you back to your quarters?”

A sullen pride stirred inside her chest. “I know where they are.” Then she realized who she must be talking to, at last. “And I know who you are. You're Poe Dameron.”

He smiled down at her. His face swam into focus. He had a very nice face. “Yes. And you’re Rey. I have absolutely no doubt you can find your own way back to your quarters.”

“You were watching out for Finn, too.”

“I was.”

“Thank you. Or is it wrong to say thank you? I’m so tired.” She blinked, and his face swam out of focus again.

He laughed, bright and clear. “I’ve been exactly where you are right now. It’ll all make sense after a solid sleep.”

“Thank you, then,” said Rey, and forced herself down the hallway in the direction of her quarters.

That night, or day, or whatever it was, she dreamed of Finn lying in the snow, cold and burned and bleeding. She picked him up and wrapped him in warm blue light, ran her dream-fingers across his eyelids and willed them to open. Finn would live. Finn had to live and he would live and that was all that mattered.

She woke to clicking and whirring, a mechanical and comforting sound, and opened her hatch to let BB-8 roll in. In condensed chirp-language, BB-8 told her that Finn had been transferred successfully, General Organa needed to see her as soon as possible but she had time to take a bath, and did she know what a bath was?

“Of course I know what a bath is,” she scoffed. It was true she’d never actually _taken_  a bath—sonic scrubbers kept desert-dwellers clean while conserving precious water—but she understood the theory perfectly well. Put the water in the receptacle and get into the water. Hardly hyperspace technology.

It turned out she was glad of BB-8’s help. They communicated seamlessly with the bath unit, ordering the white cylinder to fill itself with water of an average temperature for the average human, which seemed deadly hot at first. But how could she not trust BB-8? She lowered herself gingerly into the steaming stuff, and by some mysterious alchemy, the temperature became exactly right, only a little warmer than her blood.

BB8 extended her a multicolored sphere the size of her fist and instructed her to drop it into the bath. 

“What does it do?” she asked.

They weren’t sure. His master said she would like it, that was all.

She thanked BB-8, rubbed a little smudge off the back of their head unit with her wet thumb, and watched them wheel away.

A present from Poe Dameron. _Hmm_. She dipped the sphere into the water. It fizzed, produced a froth of gleaming silver and violet bubbles on the surface of the bath, and the smell was like a thousand flowers. Not that she’d ever smelled real flowers, not until Takodana, but she could make parallels, she could _imagine_. Everything from the wildest reaches of her imagination was coming true, right here, right now.

She drifted off for a while in the warm bath smelling of sweet flowers, letting her hair swirl all around her. 

By the time she finished her bath and dressed to meet General Organa, the flower-scent had died down to a tiny afternote layered underneath the smell of steel and green grass that dominated the D’Qar base. A reminder at the edge of her perception.


	2. Finn

He remembered burning pain, the ground shaking, then nothing… then an uncomfortable awareness that something inside his body was moving again. Air in his lungs? He could open his eyes now, if he wanted to. He wasn’t sure he wanted to. What if he’d failed, and the first thing he saw was Rey’s dead body?

He had to know.

He opened his eyes.

Rey was right there in front of him, alive and smiling. Holding his hand. “We did it,” she said. “We’re back on D’Qar, Finn."

“You’re alive. We’re all alive!” Her hand was so warm in his own, the fingers delicate and thin but strong. He knew how strong.

“Not all of us,” she said, and the brilliance of her smile dimmed a little while her hand gripped that much more tightly. “Not Han.”

He drew in a deep breath. Somewhere in the back of his mind was a dream-like place where Rey had accepted Han’s first offer, brought him along with her, and they’d both become junior crew on the Millennium Falcon, bonding over nuts and bolts and compressor pumps and complaining about picking Chewbacca’s hair from the life-support filters. Somewhere on the Outer Rim, far away from the First Order.

It was a good dream, but he had to let it go.

“How?”

“Kylo Ren. Before he even came at us. I wish I'd killed him.” Her eyes grew hard at the edges and suddenly she wasn’t smiling anymore.

“She came damn close,” said the man who’d come to the other side of the pod—Finn took maybe half a second to recognize him as Poe Dameron. A barrage of conflicting emotions struck along with that recognition, including a gut punch of guilt, because at least it wasn’t _Poe_ who’d been left dead on Starkiller Base.

When Rey said _not all of us_ , his first thought had been: _let it be anyone except Poe_.

And the universe had listened. 

As soon as the pang of guilt faded, he couldn’t help noticing that Poe was right next to them both now, a playful curve to his mouth as if seeing Finn alive was an especially delicious treat. Finn liked that look. 

He took in a great big _whoosh_ of air and sprang upright in the pod.

Black spots swam in front of his eyes and he collapsed right back again.

“Easy there, friend,” said Poe.

“You have to do this in stages,” Rey chided. "Just lie back for a while. Then sit up, then stand up, then walk. Drink fluids in between. You’ll be back to normal in a day, the doctor promised. Your spinal cord was burned through, you almost died. They had to put you in a tank.”

“I don’t remember anything,” he said slowly, and then a terrible thought came to him. “Your jacket!”

“Sliced and burned to hell,” Poe told him, and sighed. “Another casualty of the war. But don’t worry, friend, I’m going to get you a new one just the same.”

“He’s very generous,” said Rey. “I have to tell you about my first bath…”

By the time she finished, they were all grinning like crazy and Finn had received doctor’s permission to sit up. He looked around—this corner of the medical wing had a wall of windows facing a sunken garden and four other pods, all empty. 

Rey noticed him counting. “The battle had a lot of casualties,” she said, matter of fact. “But hardly anyone else that needed medical attention.”

“I like to think their atoms are drifting on the solar wind,” Poe said. “That’s what I heard an old pilot say once. It stuck with me.”

“You killed him,” Finn said. The black spots were back again and his tongue was thick in his mouth.

Rey frowned. “I tried. But I couldn’t kill him. A crack opened up and I—Finn, are you having problems remembering? Maybe you should lie back down again.”

 _I have to keep going forward_ , he thought, suddenly furious with himself. There was nothing behind him but guilt and murder and horror. He shook his head. Rey was holding his hand and Poe was gripping his shoulder and the present was where he needed to be, moving forward, never looking back.

“No,” he said thickly. “I’m fine. I’m ready. Just need a drink."

The doctor came with a bulb-cup of orange-tinted fluid. He drank until the black spots receded. The slight medicine taste couldn’t keep him from draining it to the last drop. 

It tasted good, like the future.


	3. Poe

For reasons that were undoubtedly solid, but nevertheless hard for Poe to swallow, General Organa didn’t want him on the mission to find Luke.

Poe crossed his arms, leaned against the wall of her sparse quarters and stared into her eyes. BB-8 whirred softly at his side, picking up the tension.

“You have an objection,” she said. They knew each other well enough that his response might as well have been a shout of outrage. “Get it off your chest.”

“I think we’re piling too much duty on Rey. Send her, yes. But send a full team with her.”

“I can’t risk it, Poe. I’ve sent people after Luke before, I’ve gone looking myself, and it hasn’t worked. She’s our best chance.”

He nodded, reluctant. The concern had to be voiced, but they were woefully shortstaffed, with at least four mutually incompatible mission rosters awaiting every single soul on base. Few teams had everyone they needed, and nobody had everyone they wanted. Rey's burden was great—but all their burdens were great.

“Is that all?” Leia’s fierce gaze had never wavered from his own.

“Yes. That’s all.”

She smiled then, the lines at the corners of her eyes crinkling up. “I can always rely on you, Poe.”

“You need me to be honest.”

“I do. I need to listen to all the sides. Consider every breaking point. I don’t always make the right decision. I made a very, very bad one with Han.”

 _Bring him home_ , she’d told Han.

“That wasn’t your fault,” Poe protested.

“It doesn’t matter whose fault it was, we have to live with the outcome. It was my responsibility to make the decision.”

“And I wouldn’t trust anyone else with that responsibility.”

She sighed, the shoulders of her small frame slumping. “Don’t worry, I'm not going through a crisis of my own judgement. I know the mistakes I make can get people killed. I have to keep making those mistakes because there’s no other choice but giving up, and I won’t give up. But I can correct one error: Kylo Ren is fair game. If he endangers the lives of anyone in the Resistance, kill him.” Her voice was steady, her face set in grim determination. There was no hitch, no pause when she used the new name instead of _Ben_.

“I understand.” He hesitated, and then added, “He’s not important to me. You are, our people are, and our mission.” That wasn’t the entire truth—remembering the trawl of Force-fingers through his mind in that interrogation room, yes, he certainly held a strong opinion on whether he wanted Kylo Ren alive or dead—but it was enough of the truth. He’d follow orders out of deep respect and old family friendship. If she ordered him into the heart of a black hole, he’d raise all the logical objections... and then do it anyway.

She was probably right about Rey. Chewbacca would be with Rey on the mission, and as soon as the Millenium Falcon was fixed and upgraded, any First Order forces fast enough to follow wouldn’t have the firepower to shoot them down.

This sense of protectiveness towards Rey surprised himself—he hardly knew her, after all. He felt much the same toward Finn, but then, Finn had saved his life. That tended to create a certain bond...

He asked Leia about Finn and his future, partly because the subject was very much on his mind and partly because it really was a problem, and far more pleasant to think about than killing orders.

“Finn is already a skilled gunner,” she said, clearly relieved to change the subject as well. “Perhaps a good candidate for pilot training. But his greatest importance for the Resistance is psychological: we still don’t know how he turned. It’s possible that it’s something unique to his psyche, but if he’s the one exception to the rule, there won’t be any others. On the other hand, if there was something in his environment, in his simulation training regime, that enabled him to break free, perhaps we could duplicate it.”

“More likely a combination of internal and external.” From the moment Finn had taken off that helmet, Poe had known he was unique.

“That’s the likely option,” agreed Leia. “Physically, he should be back to normal now. As soon as he gets medical clearance, I want him to spend half his waking hours letting the psych techs prod at him. It’s going to be painful for him,” she added, unnecessarily, and Poe grinned ruefully. He’d spent his share of time with the psych techs after making his way back home; it had nearly made him regret surviving that desert crash. Nearly.

“And the other half of his time?”

“Keep an eye on him,” Leia said. “Show him around Base. Play chess. Go dancing. Teach him how to live for something that’s not bigger than himself.”

“I’d be happy to,” said Poe.


	4. Rey

On Rey's second bath ever in her life, she soaked in the water so long that the skin of her fingertips formed spongy little ridges. Had she lived through the destruction of an entire planet only to die of an obscure and embarrassing skin disease? Should she call a medic?

She jumped out of the possibly toxic water, threw on a tunic and called Finn on the wall unit. He’d been given his own quarters on the other side of the base, nearer to his psych tech appointments.

“Look at my fingers,” she begged, pushing them at the camera as soon as he switched on the connection. “I just got out of the bath. What’s wrong with me? Am I allergic to water? Is it serious?”

He opened his eyes very wide, face contorting with the effort not to smile. “Don’t worry, Rey. Happens to everyone. Your fingers will be back to normal in a few minutes now that you’re dry, I promise.”

“Oh. Well, thank you for not laughing at me."

“I would _never_ laugh at you,” he protested.

“It’s alright if you laugh at me.”

He immediately broke into laughter. Loud and deep and strong, the purest and happiest sound she’d ever heard in her life. His laugh was so downright infectious she had to laugh herself, although she tried to hide her mouth behind her hand at first. She laughed for both of them, she laughed for all of them, because they were alive and what else was there to do?

“I’m sorry,” he gasped out. “I said I wouldn’t laugh.”

“You’re a terrible liar,” she accused through hiccupy giggles.

“I _am_ a terrible liar. Never got the hang of it. How are your fingers?”

He was right. They were returning to their normal color and shape. “It’s a medical miracle.” She waved them at the camera again.

He leaned forward and smiled approvingly, the wall unit projecting the bold lines of his face at an especially striking angle. “I heard you’re leaving soon.” His face was still relaxed from all the laughing, but there was something tight and guarded in his eyes now.

“Yes. As soon as the last repairs are made.”

“How do you feel about that?”

A growing uneasiness roiled in her stomach. “What kind of question is that? It doesn’t matter what I feel about it. I have to do it.”

“It matters to me."

“Oh.” She had the sudden urge to cover her mouth again. Or cover her eyes so Finn couldn’t see her. Or run away and hide in a cave. The path was clear as long as she didn’t think about _feelings_ , as long as she focused on the absolute necessities. That was how she’d lived so long alone.

That life was over, and now she had to be brave. For herself, and most importantly, for Finn.

She took a deep breath.

“If we find Luke and he can train me, that’s what I want. And more than I want it, I need it, because I feel like I’m naked all the time—no, not naked, more like I don’t even have any skin, my whole body is just nerves and blood on the surface and there’s no shelter and a sandstorm is coming, I can feel it in the air and it’s about to howl over the horizon and strip me down to the bones. Or I’m going to go crazy and start killing people, just reaching into their minds and taking what I want. I need training, Finn, I need it so much. And that’s not the only reason I’m scared.”

“Why? What’s the other reason?” He looked stricken.

She was relieved he wasn’t physically present in the room. His face in half-holographic profile glowing ghostly blue at the edges was hard enough. He made her feel emotions she’d only ever felt in dreams after falling asleep in the open desert exhausted and heartsick from staring at the spaces between the stars.

“I’m scared I’ll never be closer to anyone than I am to you right now,” she said.

“Rey, I don’t understand.”

She took another deep breath. “Jedi training in the Old Republic meant no personal attachments. When Luke began the Jedi Order again, there were changes. And the changes didn’t work. Everyone died, after all. Kylo Ren killed them. If I train, will it be under the old rules or the new rules? I don’t know. General Organa doesn’t know. But she never trained as a Jedi because she wasn’t willing to give up certain things in her life—she wanted a family and she had that family, at least for a while. The Light Side is _hard_ , Finn.”

“You’re thinking about family. I know how you feel.” Of course Finn understood how she felt. He’d lost his family too. She wasn’t concerned about marking milestones with marriage ceremonies or babies, it was something harder to pin down, a yearning to become whole again.

“I know you understand,” she said. “And besides that, there’s something else I don’t want to give up.” This time, she hid her entire face behind both hands. It was a reaction as unconscious as breathing. “I’ve never had sexual relations with anyone. Are those the right words? They sound so clinical.”

This time if he laughed, she was going to _die_.

She peeked out from behind her fingers.

He wasn’t laughing. He looked concerned, curious, very _focused_. She breathed a sigh of relief.

“And you want that?” he asked.

“Yes. If I have to give it up, I want to know what it feels like first.”

“And you might only have a few days.”

“Yes.”

“And do you have a certain person in mind?”

“Yes.” _I can’t believe this is happening_. She hung on to the edge of a cliff with her fingernails, wanting nothing else than to let go.

“And can I ask who this person is?”

“He’s the only one who ever came back for me." Her heart was pounding like an engine, her skin felt flushed and heated.

“Rey, would you like me to come over tonight?”

“I’m a mess. Tomorrow night.” She lunged for the disconnect button and stabbed it off.

The bath water had grown cold. Good. She needed to submerge herself in it as soon as possible.


	5. Finn

Finn bolted out of his quarters and down the shadowy walkway, retracing his route of earlier today. He didn’t feel a trace of vertigo as he whipped around the corners. The black spots were gone. He only wished his mind could have bounced back as quickly as his body. Like Rey, he was a mess, and knew it.

_I can do this. I can figure it out._

_And I'd better figure it out really,_ really _fast._

A cluster of beige doorways led to the psych offices. Most of the doors were locked, but the one he’d hoped for was still open and its office well lit.

“Hello,” he called out. “I’m back again."

“Isn’t this your off time?” the psych tech asked Finn. “I don’t mind starting our session early, of course. My species doesn’t sleep on a daily cycle.”

The tech was a spindly-limbed reptilian, rust-brown except for a scarlet head crest that reached to roughly Finn’s height. All the other psych techs he’d had sessions with were human, but he preferred this reptilian. The humans were professional enough, but they couldn’t help being a little freaked out by the details of his First Order training. If the reptilian felt anything similar, the signs of their distress weren’t legible in any body language Finn could read.

He sat down in the padded chair and drummed his fingers against the spongy fabric. Standard issue for these offices—the chair would register his heart rate and several other stress indicators. “I didn’t have anything planned, so I thought I’d get an early start.”

The tech hopped onto a low metal perch, their knees bending backwards, and flicked on a device at their wrist. “Very well. Commencing background session on psychosexual aspects of Stormtrooper cadet training program. Subject Finn appears mildly anxious and has elevated heart rate, but physical reactions remain well within average human parameters for a topic of this sensitivity."

 _I’m average_ , Finn thought with a blissful sense of relief. _At least something about me is average._

He launched headlong into his first recollections. “We had blood tests every week growing up. Everyone in my unit had similar anatomy and hormone targets. Around twelve, we started getting booster injection sprays. They said it was to ensure optimum muscular and skeletal growth. Most of us didn’t have much reaction to them. They made some people act strangely, though. They’d get angry easily, or start crying out of nowhere.”

“Do you recall the emotional affect personally?”

He remembered _another_ boy (designation long forgotten) raging, punching the wall until his knuckles left bloody streaks, biting at anyone who tried to pull him away, to calm him down. FN-2187 had been among those, earning a painful half-circle mark on his forearm that took months to fade away. That boy disappeared soon after, no transfer log on his designation, at least none that FN-2187 had access to.

 _That's not my name anymore_ , he reminded himself.

He hated having to remind himself so often.

The closer he grew to Rey, the more he admired her self-knowledge, how strong and centered she was in her core. She made him want to be stronger that way, too.

He’d lay his mind open a million times over, if that’s what it took.

“Would you like me to repeat the question?” asked the psych tech.

“It’s fine. I heard you. Do I remember how the drugs affected me—yes and no. I’m sure I was, but we took other drugs to reduce the side effects. And there was constant simulation training on top of that.” He could hardly remember what was real from those times. Whatever left a mark, like the bite on his arm from the boy with the forgotten number, was real. _Maybe real? Probably real_. “I don’t know if my reactions were average or outliers.” He noticed his words coming faster, running off the rails, so he closed his mouth and consciously spoke at a slower rate. “I was channeled into the cadet track, that’s all I know. The ones who bulked out the most and didn’t pass certain exams got transferred to shock troop infantry.”

“How long did you take those sprays?”

“Until I was fifteen. Then we were switched to a pill that was the same for everyone, not customized. It was mostly vitamins and an anti-spacesickness med, I think.”

“Those are commonly found and we’ve analyzed them extensively already. You’re right. What else changed?”

“We started having private sessions in the virtual reality booths. Not combat simulation, though. It’s hard to explain. There were glowing, pulsing lights, and you had to answer questions right to get them to pulse faster. Most of them were about First Order ideology. Some of them were about things that you’d done when you were younger, or what you thought about your other unit members, or your superiors. And the end result was a jolt of pleasure right there.” He gestured downward. He wasn’t embarrassed anymore, because his body didn’t seem like his own. It was just… there.

The tech nodded, a strange jerky motion that didn’t seem natural to their species. Maybe they’d learned the gesture to reassure humans.

“And we had to clean ourselves up afterwards.”

The tech nodded again. “Were these sessions regular in timing?”

“Sometimes. The sessions were used as a reward. If you weren’t doing well on your training, they were one of the privileges taken away.”

“Were you allowed to engage in autoerotic activities outside the bounds of these sessions?”

“It was frowned on.”

“Did you engage in the booth sessions regularly?”

"For a while. Then I realized some of the other cadets didn’t care about them, didn’t even like them. I was conflicted. I stopped going to regular sessions. I told my commanders I didn’t need them as much, that they could give my time slots to other cadets. I didn’t say to take me off entirely—that would have been suspicious.”

“In my view, it represents a gross imposition of institutional power into what humans consider to be a very private sphere.”

“That’s about fucking right.” Finn looked down to notice that his fingertips had clawed into the armchair. “Sorry for cursing."

“It’s quite alright. Cursing has a stress relief function for many subjects, and not only humans. When did you come to understand the abnormality of your situation?”

He flexed his fingers and forced his hands to relax. "Media from other worlds got through sometimes. We could even access it for research purposes if we had high enough clearance. But the way we were trained—we didn’t put things together, we weren’t supposed to compare the way we lived to any society outside First Order structure, because they were all inferior.”

 _Everything I grew up believing was a lie. And some of us even_ knew _it was a lie, and we chose to keep believing..._

He was so angry at the person he’d been. He remembered the first Stormtrooper he'd killed on Takodana, how the saber sizzled as it sunk through the armor and into their chest, and fiercely wished he could kill FN-2187 the same way, with such a quick and easy stroke, and finally be free.

A series of low beeps sounded from the tech’s device. They hopped off their perch, their crest wobbling. "Your signals are approaching the upper margin of safety. At this point I have to curtail the session. You need nutrition and hydration and a longer rest period.”

He was about to argue _I can go on_ , but the rational part of his mind took over. This wasn't a battlefield, it was a psych session, and a full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes attitude might well end up with him hyperventilating in a fetal position.

"Alright," he said, and rose up shakily. "Yeah. I'll go. There's a cafe around the corner. You can log my calories there and—"

"Unnecessary. We don't engage in that level of supervision," the tech interrupted.

Finn slipped out without saying goodbye.


	6. Poe

One of Poe’s pilots was from Hosnian Prime. She’d seen her entire home system go supernova, disintegrating every person, place and thing she’d grown up with, then climbed stony-faced into an X-Wing to fight the battle of Starkiller Base.

At today’s mass wake for the Hosnian system, she’d finally had enough of being stoic and downed an entire bottle of D’Qarian Mindmelt.

Poe briefly considered taking her to the medics to get her stomach pumped, but he and Jessika Pava decided against it. Allowing her this one night of self-annihilation seemed right. He grabbed one shoulder, Jessika the other, and they steered the stumbling pilot into the closest cafe. Getting some nutrients into her bloodstream to soak up the alcohol and psychedelics couldn’t hurt.

“Let’s see if she keeps this down,” Jessika said, gesturing to the empty bowl of soup.

“Go ‘way,” the pilot slurred. “I hate you. Hate you _all_.”

Poe grinned wryly. “Too bad, sunshine. You’re stuck with us tonight.”

She picked up a kebab and threw it at them. Her aim was so comically bad, the kebab flew backwards out of her hand and hit the person in the booth behind them. Poe slipped the rest of the kebabs beyond reach while Jessika sprang up to apologize and smooth any ruffled feathers.

“It’s alright,” said a familiar voice. “Bounced right off.”

“You!” said Poe. He got up, pulled Finn to his feet and gave him a big hearty hug. Maybe too big, because Finn froze. Poe groaned and dropped back. “I wasn’t thinking about your spine. Did I just knock it out again?”

“No, my back is fine,” Finn said.

Poe flashed to the second sense of the word _fine_ and a mental image of Finn from the back, broad shoulders angling down into a thick, muscled torso… _stop it_. He was on duty tonight. Babysitting duty, more or less, but it still counted.

Jessika waved at Finn. “I’d ask you to sit with us, but our table might get messy real soon because—“

“I love you,” said the pilot to Jessika. “Love you all. And I think I’m gonna puke.”

Luckily, the cafe owner brought over a bucket in time.

“I hope this doesn’t ruin your appetite,” Poe said to Finn once some of the chaos had died down. They sat down together while Jessika and another squadmate hauled the pilot off to the washroom.

“I ate already. I know about her, by the way—how she’s a Hosnian. If someone else threw a kebab at me, there would have been a food fight for sure.” He picked up a fruit peel garnish and twirled it between his fingers to illustrate.

Poe laughed and slapped Finn on his perfectly fine back. During sickbay visits, he’d grown to appreciate Finn’s sense of humor. Come to think of it, he’d appreciated Finn’s sense of humor even during their short time on the run.

“So you must have had food fights in cadet training,” he said, fully aware of the strain that question might put on Finn. It was a calculated risk.

“Heavily punished, but yeah. We had food fights in the cafeteria when I was a kid.” Finn smiled. “It’s funny how I don’t mind answering questions about my past when you’re the one asking.”

“If it would help that much, I’d go to sessions with you.”

“Are you serious?”

“Dead serious. I told you, General Organa and I had a meeting about you. And aside from your strategic importance, you mean a lot to me as a friend.”

Finn suddenly averted his face. Flicked the fruit peel onto an empty plate. “You don’t need to come with me. I’m making a lot of progress on my own.”

“Good.”

“There is a way you could help me, though.”

“Anything. You name it.”

Poe was good at reading people, and Finn might as well have turned into a flashing red WARNING indicator: shoulders bunched up, head drawn in, jaw tight, fists clenched. Poe tensed up in automatic response and quickly put a hand on Finn’s arm. Another calculated risk, but it worked: the touch relaxed Finn by several degrees.

“Never mind,” Finn said. “You’ve done so much for me already.”

Poe laughed and shook his head. “All I’ve done is get you some new clothes and visited you a few times in sickbay. You saved my life. You saved Rey’s life. And you’re giving us the best intelligence on the First Order we’ve ever gotten, which means saving all our lives over again.”

Finn smiled again, his face lighting up with good humor. “When you put it that way, I guess I’m pretty amazing.”

Poe was fascinated by how quickly Finn cycled through emotions, how intense his inner life must be. How changeable Finn was, and yet so resilient. “Damn right you’re amazing,” he said. “Now tell me what this thing is that’s got you so worked up.”

“I want to have sex with you,” Finn said.

The background noise of the cafe faded away, and all Poe could hear for a few seconds was the rush of blood in his veins. Had Finn really said that? Yes, he had. Finn seemed like he’d surprised himself as well, eyes wide open, a stricken look.

Poe half wanted to kiss him then and there, enjoy the warmth of his lips, the changes that would come over Finn, how fucking _responsive_ he’d be…

But he couldn’t forget that flashing WARNING.

“Don’t think I’m not interested,” Poe said as calmly as he could. He was very careful not to lean either towards Finn or away from him. “I _am_ interested. I’m also concerned by a few things, like why you think this would be a favor to you.”

“Oh,” said Finn, who looked absolutely miserable now. He bit his lip and looked away from Poe. “I guess because I’m not normal.”

“We already established that. Amazing, remember?”

“So are you.”

“You’re flirting already,” Poe teased. “However awkward you think you are, you’re a fast learner. But we’ve got time. Let’s take it slow and focus on your recovery.” He didn’t want to come right out and tell Finn _I know what’s best for you_ , but really, he did. War and yearning fed into each other, and sometimes making love felt a lot like fighting against the fear of death. But he wasn’t sure if Finn understood that. Maybe he would, in time…

“It has to be tonight.”

 _No_. This definitely wasn’t right, wasn’t the time. Poe touched the side of Finn’s jaw, gently guiding his face back up so they could look in each other’s eyes.

“You have to fix me,” Finn pleaded, and Poe felt something crack, a fault line deep inside him opening to a well of sadness.


	7. Rey

Once she’d cooled down and calmed down, Rey began to second-guess herself.

Not that she didn’t want Finn—she wanted him with the fire of a thousand suns. But maybe she’d gone about it the wrong way, asked him too selfishly, destroyed something delicate between them.

She didn’t know. She didn’t have a frame of reference. Sometimes she’d meet humans in relationships crossing the desert, travelers from the scattered villages—they never stayed long. There were holovids, of course, whenever she had time to watch them, which was almost never, and even when she did have the time, they made her feel so lonely she usually switched to flight simulations and engine schematics instead.

In fact, right now she was pulling the latest data from the Millennium Falcon repairs. Which was, as expected, a minor variation on the same data she’d pulled fifteen minutes ago.

The data was familiar. Predictable.

She made herself stop looking at it. The images she’d pushed to the back of her mind rushed forward. Finn with a question in his eyes, their limbs wildly tangled together, apologies mixed with hungry kisses…

She gasped and hit the button to open another call to Finn, then immediately switched it off. She wasn’t ready.

Maybe some advice would help. If Leia was right there in the room, Rey would lay all her troubles bare. That wasn’t going to happen tonight, though. Distracting Leia from a military planning session where the lives of a millions might hang in the balance to ask incoherent questions about her love life? Unthinkable.

Poe Dameron, on the other hand, was listed as off shift tonight, and he’d just logged a low priority medical call on behalf of someone else at the Western Quadrant cafe. Poe was Finn’s friend, and he’d become Rey’s as well. He was always so generous with her, so understanding. He was older, but not a completely different generation, like Leia. And finally, he had a lot of experience in… these matters. The other pilots were free with their innuendo, starting with old chestnuts like _a sentient humanoid in every starport_ then ranging into places that made Rey blush crimson.

She dressed herself and arranged her hair, still damp from the bath. The faint smell of flowers clung to her hair from Poe’s gift, and she breathed a little more deeply to catch it.

Fading sunlight filtered through mist lit the sunken corridors of D’Qar Base. Humans and humanoids walked the corridors, most of them in no particular hurry, some of them stumbling and singing. She’d hadn’t attended the mass wake for Hosnian Prime, but she’d tuned in to the mourning songs long enough to recognize the sweet, sad strains.

Everyone on this base carried a little piece of the same pain, and that made the weight more bearable.

It didn’t take long to reach the cafe, which wasn’t a building in and of itself, simply one corner of a hulking supply depot furnished with a motley assortment of plank benches, folding tables and decommissioned vehicle seats. She drifted between tables, searching for bright flashes of pilot orange.

Not used to seeing Poe in more formal dress uniform, she almost passed his table. The high-collared olive jacket set off his dark hair nicely, but it also brought out a more severe aspect. The easy-going Poe Dameron who cracked sickbay jokes was her friend, but this man, this _commander_ —she hardly knew him.

He’d spotted her as well. He got up, smiled guardedly, walked over and leaned against the bar next to her. “You just missed Finn,” he said.

Her heart skipped a beat and her mouth went dry. “I didn’t know he was here. I was looking for you, actually. Where did he go? Was he alright?”

“I don’t know.”

For a second she wished she was back on Jakku, where she never had to let down her guard, where her obligations were measured solely in kilos and calories. She’d never imagined Poe looking at her this way, as if she were a problem to be solved with merciless compassion, and it terrified her. She’d rather face a rathtar.

“You have to tell me what’s wrong,” she begged.

“Finn was… physically well. Shaken up, that’s all. He told me he was going back to his quarters. Rey, this might be a difficult question for you to answer, even painful, but do you think you might have gotten inside his head?”

“What makes you think that?” Anger and guilt clashed inside her, because oh _gods_ that was her darkest, deepest fear dragged to light. “You’re damn right it’s a painful question. No and never and no again because I would rather _kill_ myself.”

“I know how you feel about him. I know you don’t want to hurt him. But do you think there’s any chance that even without knowing… you could have?”

A raw, itchy feeling crawled over her cheeks, the forecast of tears. _I came to you as a friend and you’re only hurting me, you’re trying to make me cry_ , she wanted to scream at him. But she was a woman, not a child, and she forced herself to respond with at least some measure of dignity. “It’s not the kind of thing you do on accident,” she choked out. “If you don’t believe me, ask Leia.”

“I believe you,” he said. “And I’m sorry.” He reached out his hand to touch her shoulder. She flinched—he pulled back and sighed. “I had to ask, but I could have asked in a better way.”

“I’d better go check up on him.” She turned to go, wanting nothing more than escape. “Unless you want to _arrest_ me to keep him safe, that is.”

He ignored the barb. “Please do check on him. I think he’ll be alright, but still—Rey, wait, why did you want to see me?”

“It’s not important,” she said, and quickly walked away into the darkness where she could hide her tears.


	8. Finn

Finn went to sleep exhausted and woke up much the same way. After lying in his shelf-bed compartment and quietly groaning, he decided the problem had to be _people_. People in a general sense, full of conflicting things they wanted and made him want, and two people specifically.

He checked his call log. Both Rey and Poe had left messages last night.

Yes, people were the problem.

Maybe he could run off and hide on a hermit planet. Pull a Luke Skywalker. Then he wouldn’t have to deal with disappointing anyone.

On a selfish level, however, he also liked people a lot. He liked talking to people. Who would he talk to on a hermit planet? And the touching, too, he’d miss that. Rey’s fingers twined in his own, Poe clasping his shoulder...

Laying aside all the confusing, conflicting _likes_ and _wants_ , he couldn’t run because he had a mission now: to help the Resistance unlock Stormtrooper conditioning. And for the first time in his life, no indoctrination was involved, he’d consciously and of his own free will chosen the mission. So much lay in the balance: honoring the fallen, saving the lives of people in the Resistance, saving the lives of future children warped by the First Order into killing machines.

“Pull yourself together, Finn,” he told himself sternly.

He peeled off the covers, sat up, got dressed, rolled back the sliding door and walked out into the common room. A mixed crowd of troopers and techs readied themselves for the morning shift. He liked his living situation so far. It was a lot like a First Order dormitory, except that he had privacy: a sliding door to his shelf-bed with a lock, a real lock, which would have shocked FN-2187 but absolutely delighted Finn.

A few other early risers called out greetings, and he waved back. He was popular here, and often got pressed for details about recent battles. His special status didn’t mean people bypassed him fearfully, First Order style, all it meant was getting offered hot cups of caf and tours of base and lots of smiles, and he liked that too.

He wasn’t so bad off. He’d just tell Rey the cold hard truth. _If I come over tonight and do what both of us want... I could hurt you. I could hurt myself. I could start singing First Order marches. I could pass out. Who the fuck knows? I certainly don’t. You don’t want that for your first and possibly last time._

And as for Poe, he’d just pretend like last night never happened, and Poe would gallantly play along, and wouldn’t treat him any differently. At least he hoped so. If necessary, Finn could always pull out the _I saved your life_ card.

He went straight to the psych tech offices, ate a basic breakfast ration in the lounge area, then waited a long time for his first appointment. Not that the tech was late, she just wasn’t as early as Finn.

She began right away. “We’d like to know more about the kill switch you mentioned in the first debriefing. In the few cases we’ve ever captured stormtroopers alive, they undergo rapid brain death. Sometimes it’s a matter of seconds. They must have some kind of suicide pill, but we haven’t figured out the mechanism.”

“The kill switch is built into the helmet,” he explained. “And the helmet can’t be taken off by anyone outside the First Order, or the kill switch is triggered automatically. We were told to say ‘I’ve been captured’ and the helmet would recognize the voice command and release a coded pulse. A subdermal implant on the back of our neck would read that pulse and release nerve toxin into the spine. Nice and neat. There was a third way of flipping the kill switch remotely we weren’t supposed to know about, but I disabled it before I ran.”

She pulled up a screen and they went over the timeline together.

He’d been planning his escape since the massacre at the mining station where he’d held back fire and Captain Phasma had noticed. Every spare second between that mining station and the battle of Jakku, he’d been running through scenarios, searching for gaps in surveillance, theorizing how to hack his own kill switch. He knew he had to escape or die trying. The only question left in his mind was whether Slip would come along. When FN-2187 ran _that_ scenario, nine times out of ten it ended with Slip turning him in, perhaps even killing him for a reward.

That one time out of ten where Slip turned traitor as well had haunted him with the promise that he wouldn’t have to run alone...

Until Poe Dameron shot Slip. Then there were no more questions left. From that point on, the path was terrifying but crystal clear.

“When I took off my helmet on the _Finalizer_ , I disabled its kill switch,” he told the tech. “Captain Phasma must have suspected. I could’ve sabotaged my blaster and tried to make her believe it really malfunctioned when I tried to shoot the villagers, but I don’t think I could have hidden what I did to the kill switch. So after she told me to report to her division, I went straight to where Poe Dameron was being held and broke him out.”

The tech called in another tech and a mech droid, and he spent the rest of the morning poring over schematics of stormtrooper helmets, showing them how the switch worked and the way he’d disabled it, a brute-force severing that had to be done with exactly the right timing.

The session after this would be pure psych debriefing, and he dreaded it... although not as much as he dreaded seeing Rey or Poe again.


	9. Poe

With the secrecy of its location compromised, the Resistance needed to wind down D’Qar Base. The New Republic, devastated by the loss of the Hosnian system, had no more resources left to sustain an underground military complex in such a remote corner of the galaxy.

Poe, being a child of wartime, was quite prepared to accept the inevitable abandonment. Still, he’d miss this place. The verdant forests and streams reminded him of his Yavin homeworld, and judging by all the evacuation meetings he’d been attending today, their next base would likely be an industrial asteroid belt or lifeless gas giant moon. No way to feel the wind in his hair between missions...

This afternoon D’Qar’s capricious atmosphere released a light, steady rain that filtered down into the sunken corridors to form a muddy slurry. Mud distressed BB-8, which was the first reason Poe hadn’t taken them along on this visit. Emotional conflicts between people BB-8 loved were also distressing, every harsh word like sandpaper to droid synapses, and that was the second reason, because Poe was on his way to meet Finn, and he had no doubt Rey would be waiting as well.

How had everything between the three of them become so sad and strange? Because war brought people together, made them live intensely for each other, and then dragged them apart?  Not the answer he was looking for, but he knew in his bones it was the right one.

Poe saw Rey before she saw him. She stood by the entrance to the psych tech offices, sheltered from the rain by shallow eaves, her slender body flattened against the wall.

He froze.

Rey extended the back of her hand into the curtain of rain and watched the waterdrops roll from the tips of her fingers with eyes wide in wonder. She put a pretty finger in her mouth to taste the rain, and the feelings that came over him at the sight of that were like a curse. How had his life become so monumentally unfair? And yet he couldn’t help smiling through the injustice.

Then she looked away from the rain and _saw_ him. She took in a sharp breath, her shoulders twitching.

He did his best not to look guilty as he walked to her. “I’d like to apologize again for last night,” he said. “If I was thinking straight at all, I wouldn’t have asked you what I asked you. The fault was all mine. Whatever you and Finn are going through is none of my business.” _And when I saw you lick your finger, I swear I didn’t feel a thing._

She smoothed her hands on the fabric at her hips and looked up at him. “I accept your apology. I wasn’t at my best last night either. I let anger take control of me—”

He opened his mouth to argue, to beg Rey not to judge herself by Jedi standards already, to go easier on herself, but she stilled him with a single shake of her head and pressed on. “I should have remembered why you had that concern. Someone violated your mind. I know how that feels.”

 _Oh_. Yes, he remembered. The physical stage of his First Order interrogation had been downright cozy in retrospect. He’d always taken the order of his mind for granted, an order in which every person, place, or thing he’d known and loved were linked to each other in harmonious patterns… until the constellations of his memory fell apart under Kylo Ren’s interrogation. All he had left were isolated impressions—the howl of heavy atmosphere rushing over metal wings, a prickly feeling behind his ears, the smell of his father’s backyard cookfire—and no way to string them together. He’d _died_ in that room, in the sense that for a while there was nothing named Poe Dameron strapped to that chair, only a human-shaped sack of memories broken apart and sifted for useful intelligence.

He’d barely managed to pull himself together when Finn had walked through the door to save him.

And Rey knew what it felt like.

“The same thing happened to you,” he said.

She nodded solemnly.

They looked at each other in silence for a while. It wasn’t a comfortable silence by any means, nor uncomfortable—it was a silence that felt _necessary_ , that lifted him up inside.

At last, they understood each other.

Poe broke the silence first. “I wish you didn’t have to leave.” But he knew better than to ask her to stay. They had something else in common besides torture and Finn: an unbreakable sense of duty.

She gave him a small, brave smile. “When I’m gone, you’ll take care of him for me, right?”

“Of course.”

“Thank you.”

He reached out, took her hands wet with rain, squeezed them once, and let go. But she stayed holding on to his hands, stayed looking in his eyes.

They were still standing like that when Finn burst out of the door.

“Sorry I haven’t been answering either of your messages,” he said. A broad smile gleamed on his face, and this somber, rainy little corner of the base suddenly crackled with the energy of his movements.

Poe had expected Finn to stagger out all slump-shouldered, and here he was shining like a godsdamn supernova. “You’re happy,” he said in cautious surprise. _I hope he’s not faking it for us_. _Let him really be happy. He deserves it. He deserves everything good._

“I had a great session in there,” Finn said, clapping both of them on the back. “We talked about some of the weird sex stuff we used to do when I was a Stormtrooper, and the techs told me it wasn’t all that weird. It was a _huge_ relief. I feel normal now!”

Poe’s mind reeled, and when he stole a glance at Rey, he could tell she was every bit as amazed.

“Let’s go sit down so I can tell you all about it,” Finn said, and dragged the both of them wide-eyed down the corridor.


	10. Rey

They’d gone back to the same cafe; everywhere else in this quadrant of D’Qar Base was too full of noise and furious activity. Rey nervously eased herself onto the bench facing Finn, who was still beaming. Poe left for the bar, promising to bring back a pitcher of whatever hot drink was still in stock.

“I’m going to be honest with you,” Finn said. “Because I want to, and because—”

“—because I can tell anyway,” she finished for him, and smiled. She’d _always_ been able to tell. His first story about being with the Resistance had never taken her in. She’d pretended to believe him for a short while, sensing he was hiding some kind of pain, harmless to her, behind the lie. And she was right. It hadn’t taken him long to come clean.

He slapped the table and leaned forward.  “Exactly. Rey, I can’t be your first. Being a stormtrooper messed with my head too much. Think of me like one of your broken machines.” He pressed all ten of his fingers to his temple, and the gesture was so very _Finn_ that it made her want to cry. “The switches for sex got rewired the wrong way. They wanted us to channel all those urges into _aggression_. They conditioned us that way from early on, with drugs and simulations.”

She nodded. She didn’t understand, but she wanted him to keep talking.

Poe set a pitcher down on the table and coughed to alert them of his presence. “I’m not sure if I should be here,” he said.

“No, stay,” both Finn and Rey said in unison.

He sat down beside them, to Rey’s relief, solid and real and just _there_ , grounding her jittery thoughts.

Finn lowered his hands to the table and continued. “But it didn’t work all the way. A lot of us—not all of us, but a lot—still had those urges. We used to have a system that was beyond the control of our superior officers. A few of them might have known about the system, but they overlooked it. As long as we kept quiet, that is.”

She had no frame of reference for what he was trying to explain. Everything about her body and its needs had always seemed like hers alone, never to speak of, never to share. The lovely soft sinking feeling when she stroked herself between her thighs—hers alone.

Poe settled back against the wall. Rey tried to relax her tense muscles and imitate his body language: open to what Finn was saying, not judging, encouraging.

“Anyway, if the time was right and there were enough of us off-shift, someone would hand signal. It usually happened in a corner of the commissary or a supply closet. Two people went in, a third watched. Then we switched roles as long as nothing went wrong. Best-case scenario, nothing did go wrong, and everyone… got off, I guess you’d say. But we never knew. Sometimes the wrong switch got flipped, and one of us went into fight mode.”

Finn paused. A pang of worry hit Rey, but he didn’t seem choked up or in shock, more like thoughtfully considering the right way forward. She decided to wait.

Poe prompted him in a low, calm voice. “And that was why the third person had to be there?”

“Yes. To pull us apart if that happened. One time, I was with—” Finn twisted his mouth there, as if the name or number were difficult ”—another trooper from my unit. Everything went black and I woke up on the floor with one eye swollen shut and bleeding. We all helped each other clean up and had a sparring accident cover story ready for the officers. That’s how it went sometimes.”

“That’s equally disturbing and heart-warming,” Poe said. “No force I fought with ever tried to tell me how to fuck, but if they did, well, I’d figure out some way to break the rule. Or run like hell, like you did. Congratulations.”

Rey felt like she ought to say something, but she had absolutely no idea what to say. She reached out and took hold of Finn’s hand on the table, curled her fingers over his clenched-tight fist, and tried to let the warmth of her hand speak for her, speak for her acceptance of everything he was and everything he’d been through.

“Thanks,” said Finn, and smiled again. “I don’t know where I'm going from here, but both of you make me feel like I’ll be alright, wherever it is.”

“I’m so sorry for putting any pressure on you,” said Rey, finding words at last. “I wish I didn’t have to leave so soon. I wish I could stay longer here with you. As your friend, I mean. If that’s all we are from now on, friends and nothing more, I’ll be happy.” It would be torture, actually, but a kind of torture she could live with.

“But I do want more,” Finn said plainly.

“Oh,” she said, the air suddenly very thick and warm around her.

Poe made a small sighing noise and bit his lip.

“What do _you_ think we should do?” she asked him.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope readers enjoy the story. I plan on finishing it as quickly as possible. Also, I would love to find an ongoing beta—please let me know if you're interested.


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